JACKSONVILLE, Fla. & WAYNE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Availity and Medecision have integrated their flagship solutions to enable smoother transitions of care and reduce preventable hospital readmissions. Optimizing the care of patients moving between hospitals, care institutions and home, as well as reducing hospital readmissions, are two of the most significant opportunities for cost reduction and quality outcome improvement in the healthcare industry. Smoother transitions and reduced admissions benefit health plans, care managers, hospitals, physicians, patients, and their families and caregivers. Preventable readmissions alone represent $30 billion in annual healthcare costs, with each preventable readmission costing $1 for every $10 spent on hospital care.1 Availity and Medecision are currently working with multiple health plans and hospitals to introduce and implement this solution.
Leveraging the integrated power of Medecision’s Aerial™ care management solution and Availity’s network of physicians and hospitals, health plans and care providers will be connected in real-time through automated admission and discharge information so health plan care managers or physician-based care coordinators can initiate a post-discharge care plan immediately. The automation of this important step replaces inconsistent and lengthy (often weeks-long) manual practices, where care may have been negatively affected due to lagging and inconsistent notifications.
“Real-time care transitions directly attack the problem of costly preventable hospital readmissions, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle we’re solving,” said Deborah M. Gage, President and CEO of Medecision. “Every investment decision we make is to help our payer and care provider clients share immediate and complete information – personalized to the patient -- that drives accurate decision making and sets the foundation for better care.”
“Integrating our discharge capabilities with Medecision responds directly to the growing demand from our customers for the clinical solutions we announced in June,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of Availity. “By enabling physicians, hospitals and health plans to exchange time-critical information at the moment of discharge, we resolve workflow inefficiencies that present barriers to best practices in care management. The integration with Aerial is one more application of real-time clinical information we’re developing to meet the demands of new payment structures based on quality and patient outcomes.”
About Availity – Patients. Not Paperwork.®
Availity and its subsidiary, RealMed, make the health care system run faster and better. We provide physicians, hospitals, and health plans with essential business and clinical information to streamline care delivery, drive productivity and better revenue cycle management, and enable better patient experiences. The Availity® Health Information Network encompasses business and clinical services, supporting both real-time and batch electronic data interchange via the Web and business-to-business (B2B) integration. For more information, including an online demonstration, please visit www.availity.com/clinical or call 1.800.AVAILITY (282.4548).
About Medecision – Liberating™
Medecision is the leading provider of healthcare management solutions serving national, regional and local health plans, insurers and provider-based care organizations, more than 74,000 physicians, and 44 million consumers. Working within the framework that patients, care providers and health plans are all driving towards better health outcomes, Medecision and its Aerial™ solutions help connect all stakeholders to liberate the highest quality and most cost-efficient care.
As more organizations transition to value-based care, Medecision continually applies its 24 years of experience, its comprehensive technology platforms, significant investments in research and development, and the strongest clinical expertise to ensure consumers receive the best possible care. With Medecision as a business partner, health plans and care providers confidently manage through market changes, regulatory updates and new populations, while improving quality and reducing costs.
1 More Than 4 Million Potentially Preventable Admissions Cost Hospitals Nearly $31 Billion. AHRQ News and Numbers, April 29, 2009. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD
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